Eddie Hearn Insists that DAZN is Financially Fine
From the very moment that they jumped into the American market, many looked upon the DAZN app with a fair amount of speculation. Sure, the company was successful in other regions in the world and was backed by an outrageous amount of money. While somewhat odd, the company even placed the successful and well-seasoned UK boxing promoter Eddie Hearn at the helm of the American expansion.
It was odd to place Hearn in the lead position because, as said before, he was well-versed in UK boxing politics and not the US. Well before Hearn and DAZN tried their hands in the market, financially well-to-do celebrity’s such as Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Sports launched boxing ventures that quickly crashed and burned. Said to say, celebrity, resources and money alone does not guarantee success in the business of boxing.
Despite the would-be obstacles, DAZN made their debut and then enjoyed a measurable amount of success. Trouble in paradise was once again assumed when it was announced that the $10 monthly fee was going to double to $20. Fans and boxing insiders took this to mean that DAZN were hurting for money and possibly things were rockier than believed.
HOLD YOUR HORSES!
This intensified when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down sports all over the world. At the outset of the global catastrophe, no one knew how long boxing would be on the sidelines and few believed that DAZN would survive an extended drought. So naturally countless folks began ringing the death knell for the US newcomer.
However, in a recent interview with Boxing Social, Eddie Hearn took the time to address these notions and assure that they were completely unfounded.
“You got to be careful what you read, really just in general in life, but DAZN is in a position where nothing has changed. The focus, the strategy, the mindset of being a major player in the world of boxing is absolutely still there…nothing has changed in terms of the number of shows, nothing has changed in terms of what fights we want to do. Just purely, how do we come back?”
“And for any sports streaming service that doesn’t have live sports for three months I don’t think it’s ideal for anybody! And this doesn’t just go for DAZN. It goes for ESPN, it goes for Sky, this goes for BT, so it’s been challenging for all businesses.”
BATTLE DAMAGE
Yet, even though Hearn is quick to say that DAZN will be okay, he does admit that this last couple of months have been rather taxing. Ultimately though, Hearn has great faith in the overall success of DAZN.
“I think DAZN’s biggest challenge was the lack of sort of brand presence if you like, through their launch, through their year and half, or whatever it is, of existence in America. So, no they are not ESPN, they’re not FOX, but what they are is a service that is providing great value for fight fans. And I do believe there is huge brand loyalty as well for DAZN and what they are trying to do.”
“Because if you are a fight fan and if you are depressed by 80 or 90 dollar pay-per-views and you think that I don’t want to pay for this boxing, I think you’ve been a supporter of DAZN. So it’s not like the platform has just disappeared. There has been content, there had been fights, there is an archive.”
“But it’s still very challenging for a live event of a live sport streaming service…so, yeah, probably more challenging for DAZN because they had more hurdles initially but we’re all focused and I believe it’s going to be a big success in America as it is a huge success globally already.”
By: Bakari Simpson
